7digital slams Nokia's Comes with Music

Nokia's Comes with Music service is blasted
Nokia's Comes with Music service is blasted

7digital, the first European site to offer DRM-free MP3 downloads, has condemned the new Nokia 'Comes with Music' service for locking the songs to one device.

Although the service allows you to copy music onto PC and keep it after the 12 or 18 month subscription is up, Ben Drury, CEO of 7digital.com, has some strong views on the subject.

"Nokia's new service is an interesting new model for digital music but at first glance seems fatally flawed.

"Songs downloaded through the Comes With Music service are not in MP3 format and are wrapped in DRM (Digital Rights Management) locks which means the downloads cannot be played across a multitude of music devices including iPods and all other MP3 players."

Forever

"Nokia claims users will be able to keep any downloaded tracks forever, even if they decide not to renew their contract," Drury continues.

"In reality, "forever" means for the lifetime of the device (typically two years) or computer they download to – users won't be able to transfer their music to new, non-Nokia devices in the future.

"A compelling music offering needs to escape DRM. The high-quality DRM-free MP3 format is what digital music consumers have been waiting for. We know that consumers see DRM as somewhat of a hindrance when purchasing legal digital music."

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grew with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.

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